Friday, April 20, 2007

‘Automatic Lover’ by Sylvia (1978)

I’ve played this record a lot. It’s a wee bit fuzzy in the beginning. There are two pressings of this single. The other one (with a more boring label) is a shitty pressing. This one sounds fine, cut at 45 and full of space-disco life. Sylvia Robinson had a gold record with her hit ‘Pillow Talk’ and founded All Platinum Records and Sugar Hill Records with husband Joe Robinson. Her story is far too long for this post. Let’s get back to ‘Automatic Lover.’ I really love this recording. Her vocals, wet with plate reverb, soar over the top of the disco arrangement. The phasing bass-line bounces the track along while subtle synth touches peek in here and there. The “robot” voice is really funny. I can’t tell if they ran it through a synth filter or an lfo or what, but it’s far from vocoded. Get your dancing shoes on robots. This record is programmed to deliver automatic satisfaction.

Its always kind of annoying when two different versions are both space-disco rockers of the highest order....personally I go for the original Dee Dee Jackson version but only by a cosmic whisker...anyway, nothing bad can be said about Sylvia ever, can you imagine what music would have been like had Sugar Hill not existed!?! impossible to imagine.